Startling new claims could shed light on why Vladimir Putin is so keen to free assassin Vadim Krasikov from his German criminal and bring him back to Russia.
The 58-year-old state assassin played a role in the deal that led to the release of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was falsely accused of espionage through Moscow.
When the sinister Krasikov landed, Putin, 71, shook the killer’s hand and hugged him on a specially arranged red carpet. He was the first to get off the plane, in front of the other repatriates, and to place himself in the arms of the dictator. The autocrat greeted him by saying “zdorovo,” a casual greeting that implies a past closeness.
Putin then publicly promised that Krasikov would get the highest state honor. None of the other prisoners exchanged were received so warmly. Russian intelligence agent Krasikov is serving a life sentence imposed by a German court for the murder of a former Chechen independence fighter in Berlin in 2019. .
He shot dead Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in broad sunlight at Kleiner Tiergarten Park while riding his motorcycle in August 2019. He thought he had acted on the orders of the Russian government in killing Khangoshvili. According to the German newspaper Bild, it turns out that Putin and Krasikov were strongly connected in the past, in the 1990s, when the Kremlin leader was taking his first steps in politics.
Krasikov would possibly know some of Putin’s most explosive secrets. Military analyst and editor Julian Röpcke revealed: “A Western intelligence service believes that the Russian dictator feared that Krasikov would reveal data if he remained in a German criminal for too long. For revenge against the Russian regime that did not release him. Or make a deal with the authorities.
Krasikov is suspected of “playing a very important role in Putin’s rise in the 1990s” and perhaps even in the suspicious death of the autocrat’s main political mentor, Anatoly Sobchak, the former mayor of St. Petersburg, in 2000. “It was a compensation for quo: Sobchak would get Putin off corruption charges. Putin helped his mentor when he was accused of corruption,” the report said.
Krasikov is believed to have worked for Sobchak and his deputy Putin “and acted against his political opponents. ” However, in February 2000, a few weeks after Putin took over as acting president, Sobchak died suddenly. Officially, it was a central attack, but there were suspicions of homicide. Röpcke asked: “Does Krasikov have anything to do with the alleged murder of Putin’s political mentor? And does the trail even lead to Putin himself?”
“These suspicions come from a Western intelligence service, which believes that this is why Putin fought so hard for Krasikov’s release. “The report said: “The Russian dictator attaches wonderful importance to what is known about his past. If intelligence suspicions that he was involved in the assassination of his political mentor were true, they would cast doubt on Putin’s favorite characteristic: the loyalty he supposedly values so much.
“And it would cast an irreparable shadow over the narrative of his rise if Putin wanted his rise to be known. Another report says German investigators are dissatisfied with the release of secret service assassin Vadim Krasikov. The resolution to free him is part of a package of measures that involved the exchange of another 26 people between the West and Russia.
But it turns out that Putin is building the exchange around Krasikov’s return from Germany. Russia’s PolitYumor Telegram channel said: “Putin rushed to the airport to hug the killer. A hitman, and even deceptive Russian propaganda does not deny that Krasikov is a hitman. “Putin doesn’t care about those who have experienced pain. Putin only cares about those who kill on his orders. It kills in Germany, in Ukraine, in Russia itself. “
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